Sci-fi and Heroic Fantasy discussion

Amazon lost $126 million bucks last quarter...i wonder if the Kindle divison is showing a profit? The fantinals say the problem is Amaxzon dumping cash into the Fire phone, developing digital content such as video games and video programing...is the 126 mega-buck loss a early warning Amazon is entering troubbled waters? More importantly, are all these digital books we bought safe for the long term? Will i finish reading my Kindle library before the cloud fades away?

Amazon has a fat income, i wonder how much cash they are sitting on? I know they plow most of their profits back into their biz, so i doubt it alot....

Then again i worry to much...it is a 19 billion dollar corp...this is likely just a blip. But less play what if....if Amazon keeps this up (I doubt they will...i mean come on...) and they shut their doors, would that kill e-books? I know i'd think twice about buying another e-reader and buying e-books from another co. if i lost my kindle library because Amazon went belly-up...and i bet so would all the other kindle users.

I stopped buying Kindle ebooks when Amazon took away that woman's entire e-library without prior notification, a reimbursement or explanation. THis woman hadn't done anything illegal (according to the article) She lived in a country that didn't have Amazon access so she went to the UK web site to buy ebooks. That looked to be the reason for Amazon's actions. I've no idea what's up with accessing amazon.co.uk from another European country.

I think you will see that little blip disappear shortly as the new "Prime" prices go into place. That is where they are losing more than anywhere else. The shipping cost to them to offer free 2 day shipping is killing them. The higher "Prime" membership cost will pretty much take care of the loss!!

Yeah, I'm not worried for them.... they invest most of their money and the shareholders know that and as long as they trust them to finally make a profit they'll be alright. Besides, once they've killed every other e-book dealer they'll be able to raise prices.

"I stopped buying Kindle ebooks when Amazon took away that woman's entire e-library without prior notification, a reimbursement or explanation."
There was also that unfortunate 1984 incident... I'll never trust cloud computing, especially when a big corporation is involved (also goes for google docs, and others), that's why I deDRM what I buy from amazon and store it on my computer. If/when I change my e-reader I'll just convert the books to whatever format the new one can read.

I think Amazon must be some kind of front for some enormous secret project Jeff Bezos is funding. I can't believe they aren't making money hand over fist on Kindle and AWS, so unless the Fire phone is secretly lined with gold, I must be missing something...

Isn't this what Amazon does? Every so often they expand in a hundred different directions, lose a bunch of money, then cut what doesn't work.

So far this year we've seen Fire TV, Amazon Cloud, Streaming Music, Unlimited book rental, Drone Delivery, and an astoundingly expensive phone. I'm not surprised their losing money, but it won't last. Just looks like a good time to pick up some Amazon stock to me.

Don't forget Amazon Original Series. The two pilots I voted for are going forward:

Bosch

The After

One of the the most interesting things about Amazon's reported losses is the varied interpretation from the media. Forbes can't understand why a company wouldn't focus on growth at all costs, while Wired sees AWS (loos or no) as the single greatest business innovation since Windows.

Classic monopolist behavior..; invest and take losses now to squish the competition longterm. Only those with a "shareholder uber alles" mentality can't fathom that. I'd be more worried about possible Anti-Trust actions in the future than current revenue or dividends if I was a big holder.

Did I say Anti-Trust? Must be contaminants in the ice...; scotch usually keeps me fairly grounded in reality. :}

Daran wrote: "ISo far this year we've seen Fire TV, Amazon Cloud, Streaming Music, Unlimited book rental, Drone Delivery, and an astoundingly expensive phone...."

And almost on cue, today they added: 3D Printed Products Store. Interesting possible future business to get in on the ground floor.

Oooh, they have a customized 3D-printed Totoro cookie cutter! (A perfect match for my Totoro potholders.)

i want the Iron Man exoskeleton 3D printed with carbon nanotubes...i can't find it listed, but i know they sell it...

Profit is infinitely open to manipulation. Say Amazon US buys it's boxes from Amazon Cayman Islands (where there is no tax) - it can overpay for box materials and move its profits to the Cayman Islands. Of course what is does is infinitely more subtle, but the whole process of corporate taxation is voluntary for big companies sadly.

Amazon isn't going anywhere anytime soon. They're too big to fail. I don't know what could ever cause their fall but internal calamities. This isn't one of them.

I agree , Amazon is a behemoth, it will take far more than this to get rid of it. Heck they are investing 20 times the amount of their losses just in India in the next couple of years.

Nicholas wrote: "Amazon isn't going anywhere anytime soon. They're too big to fail. I don't know what could ever cause their fall but internal calamities. This isn't one of them."

I don't know about "too big to fail" - it's not a bank.

Regarding the woman who had her books pulled by Amazon UK, I don't know the details but my guess is she broke their terms of service rules. Although in this digital age it makes no sense, many (most?) distribution agreements between publishers and retailers like Amazon are geographically limited. In other words, Amazon UK is allowed to sell ebooks to customers in the UK. They are not allowed to sell ebooks to customers in Yugoslavia, Lithuania, or Fiji. Once they found out this customer was not a resident of their distribution area, they were probably contractually obligated to cut off her access to the books on question. Since the woman would have broken their terms of service by purchasing these books, they probably had no obligation to refund her money.

That said, the cloud us a great way to store our ebooks and allows me to remotely download any of my book. However, and sensible person would have local copies of all their ebooks in case anything ever happens to Amazon or their account.
I've alrwady list a few ebooks I bought from smaller vendors that popped up in the early days of ebooks, and eventually failed. Now I keep copies of all my amazon books on Mt hard drive and backed up on a second external drive.

Spooky1947 wrote: "i want the Iron Man exoskeleton 3D printed with carbon nanotubes...i can't find it listed, but i know they sell it..."

Now that I would buy:)

George wrote: "Nicholas wrote: "Amazon isn't going anywhere anytime soon. They're too big to fail. I don't know what could ever cause their fall but internal calamities. This isn't one of them."

I don't know abo..."

- Banks fail. BCCI?